Bringing her back

one - doorstep

A Day Earlier

"An, where's my lunchbox?"

"An, the cookies are baked!"

"An, I can't find my socks!"

There they go again. Every morning. The same old routine. The boys never learn their lesson.

The oven made a 'ding' sound and I jogged to the kitchen. The cookies were baked all right, and packing them was troublesome. Ok this is just extra information that you need not know.

"Aaron, your lunchbox is on the counter. Alana please get your things ready and packed. And Axel, how the heck am I supposed to know where your socks are!?" I called out to my siblings while opening the drawer to get the wrappers.

They should be grateful that I still had the energy to do all these.

While taking out the cookies out of the oven I did a small little mistake by touching the hot part of the tray. Ouch. So yeah you know, sucked on my finger for a second or two before taking the tray of cookies out fully.

Acting like a mom was hard. Definitely. Well, not that we didn't have one. Especially when you had to take care of three kids. Energy sucking.

The house was almost turning upside down due to my siblings leaving all of the clothes everywhere, like a snake leaving it's skin on a tree.

Aaron was already 13, Axel is turning 10 next month and I have yet to collect enough money for his mini birthday party. And Alana, the youngest, was 7 and a half. And yet they still needed so much support. Sometimes i didn't understand them as well, especially when they were all aware of our current situation.

I divided the cookies into three wrappers and tied them with small elastic bands and tossed them on the counter.

"Kids, go to mom's room and give her a kiss."

They stared at me for a second and quietly walked up the stairs to visit our mom. I slowly watched them walk up and sighed. They always had the same reaction when it came to greeting our mom.

I quickly wiped my hands on the towel and followed them up the stairs to our parents' room.

"You knock the door."

"No, you do it."

"Oh come on, I did it yesterday!"

I gave the two bickering boys a glare. "She's our mother, what are you guys so afraid of?"

They silenced. I shook my head before lightly knocking on the door and giving it a small push.

"Mom?"

And there she was. On her bed. Her usual self. Sitting up and staring out of the window. She looked so frail and weak, and her veins showed. The morning sun made her blondish-brown hair glitter, and it made her look so pale. She almost looked like a ghost.

She looked down and fiddled with her fingers, "Going to school kids?"

Honestly her voice made a crack in my heart. It was so sorrowful and she looked so vulnerable.

Alana was the first to make a move. She skipped to our mother and beamed at her, "Yes mommy, and like any other day, we'll pray for you!"

I pushed the two remaining boys into the room and they looked back with worried faces.

Get it over and done with, morons.

They read my expression and ran to our mom, fearing that I'd skin them alive. They didn't know what to say, so they just gave her a tight hug and ran out of the room. I shook my head at their actions, scaredy cats.